One Last Time, With Feeling
by Xyris
Summary: FF6. Some things are better left undead.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Last Halloween, a group of strangers got together over frosty pints and masked faces, thinking to themselves 'You know what? Someone really ought to have a fanfic contest to pay homage to everyone's favorite RPG characters, not to mention the scariest night of the year'. The bunch of someone's turned out to be us, and the product of fiction you're about to read is, well, the least deserving. The other entries were no less twisted (quite the opposite, in fact) and I'd urge everyone else to seek them out for yourselves. Get in contact with me if you want the URL's. This piece is rated R for course language, sexuality, and zombie violence. All characters herein are the properties of Square-Enix, except Dante and Vergil who belong to Capcom.

**One Last Time, With Feeling**

"You ain't just in here by yourself, boy."

Locke's head lulled to one side of where it was propped up on his fist. He wasn't altogether sure he heard the barfly the first time, or even if the straggler was addressing him at all, until the voice repeated itself. Even then, the treasure hunter's head had taken too much of a going over from his last four canters of ale to fully comprehend what it was the man was saying. Or, perhaps, it was the going over which the barfly's ale was doing on him. Either way . . .

"I'm not in the mood," he groaned.

"You'd best listen up when someone's speaking to ya, boy. There's been talk of some strange folk abroad."

The former Returner's head abruptly straightened on his shoulders when he heard that. He suddenly knew precisely who was looking to be humored, and it didn't surprise him in the least.

"Arvis, you've been in here every night since the Ruination, and every night you're muttering something about strange folk abroad. When are you going to take up a hobby?"

"I mean it this time," he replied, dauntless. "There've been some bizarre goings-on out there in the hinterlands. Carrier pigeons gots the messages to prove it too. It's something out of Daryl's Crypt I tell ya, folk with nary a breath left in their lungs or an eye in their head. They shamble about feasting on the innards of the living, and some even say they've already reached our shores. Their numbers grow every day."

Locke started to motion to the bartender for his last order, who only shook his head and muttered something about 'ten minutes ago'. With travel clothes itching and his back teeth afloat, he finally rose shakily to his feet. He was scarcely able to get a handful of gold coins onto the counter, however, when Arvis accosted him by the arm. For one fleeting instant, Locke found the eyes of the Arvis he remembered.

"You'd do well to remember my words, Locke," he warned him. "They are beyond reason, no matter what face they wear."

Locke grasped his hand in earnest before shrugging it to one side. "Thanks for the warning."

He didn't bother waiting around for a reaction, or even pausing to make sure the old man had taken stock of how little he truly cared. Locke was in need of some fresh air, and the cool night breeze of Albrook Bay would not disappoint.

"My ear!" cried a panic-stricken woman, clutching a hand to the side of her bloodied head. "Some . . . thing from the wild bit it off! And there's more of them! They're coming!"

He pushed his way passed the commotion the woman was causing, his own adrift mind state dismissing the ruckus as something trivial. He was soused, for one thing, and so the whole fuss could have very easily been imagined. She had also said something about the wild, and Locke grinned in retrospect as his thoughts returned to his favorite Veldt child. He's probably on the sauce tonight too, he uttered quietly to himself, snorting with amusement.

Making his way around the last bend between him and the inn, heartache was suddenly able to break past the barrier of his drunken stupor. That had been their rail, he thought, his and Celes' rail. It looked just as it had back on the night before first setting sail for Thamasa, a night which now seemed an entire world and whole other lifetime away. The treasure hunter took one unsteady step forward, but couldn't take another. It had been too long since they had last spoken, yet he still remembered the way she had looked at him that night, her eyes shaded with darkness and doubt toward him. And her voice. He could never forget that voice . . .

"Locke?"

Oh great, he thought, now I'm imagining 'her' as well.

"Locke, it's me! Celes!"

He only had his head halfway turned before the former general wrapped her slender arms around him. Locke wasn't altogether sure what was real or conjured anymore, but figured that this was simply too sweet a mirage to shirk away from. The scent of her was impossible to resist.

"Cel . . ." Her name was a strangled sob, barely able to escape from his throat. "It's really you."

"Of course it's me. Are you okay?" She sniffed at the air around him. "Have you been drinking?"

He pursed his lips at the question, feigning sobriety. "Oh, no. I mean, one or two . . . here and there. But, uh, not . . ."

She put a finger to his lips, and he was silent. "I thought I'd never see you again. I've missed you."

"Really," he said, sounding unconvinced. "And . . . what about all that talk . . . about finding yourself out there . . . fighting the good fight, and all that."

She seemed visibly shaken from his response. Celes was a woman who had been a soldier most of her life. She had flirted with disaster, held hands with pain, befriended the Reaper himself. And yet, when it came to affairs of the human heart, she was ever at her most vulnerable. When Locke picked up on this from the look in her eyes, he started to soften.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I'm just . . . I'm stupid."

"I wasn't ready for you then," she told him, moving closer, "I wasn't ready for us. But things have changed, I've changed. I know where it is I belong now."

"Oh?" Locke felt a shortness of breath as their lips drifted mere inches away from each other. "And where would that--"

He abruptly found himself uttering half-words between the seal of her lips. So deep and passionate was her kiss that the treasure hunter found himself melting into her arms with no hesitation whatsoever. All sense of time and reason faded, all sense of self, all sense of everything but the feel of her moist, full lips sucking and lapping against his own. The moment lasted for both an eternity and a heartbeat, leaving them both fighting for air when it was over.

Her labored breath warmed his face, while her nose grazed along the sides of his own. "Say something."

The backs of their hands teased one another's face, seeking some other frontier to explore.

"So what are you doing tonight?" he finally asked her.

She smiled...

One tossed the other almost violently into the oak walls of the inn, their hands fumbling in a frenzy across each other's body, kisses running untamed across one another's face and neck. Celes held nothing back, half-removing and half-ripping the sleeves of Locke's jacket from his arms. Impaired though Locke might have been, they had waited too long, far too long. And neither of them had even reached his room yet!

Hair awry and already perspiring heavily from their treacherous ascent up the inn's stairwell, their need for release suddenly made them tear into each other's clothes like two people possessed. Buttons flew directionless and fabric gave way as Celes shoved the treasure hunter against the wall, raining moist kisses down along the ripples of his bare chest. Locke felt the room start to spin, already dizzy as he shucked what was left of his tunic. Then, he moved to untie the knot in his bandana. Celes stopped him.

"No," she hissed between kisses. "Leave it on."

She rose back to full height, again kissing him long and hard. Her tongue wrestled and spiraled around his own, and Locke felt braver. The Magitek Knight let out a startled murmur as her breasts suddenly fell free from her corset.

"Oh God . . ." she started to say, but Locke lulled her into silence.

It took every ounce of strength she had to steel herself against the agonizing slowness of the relic hunter's touch. While she fought her own losing battle, Locke's hands wandered - probing the firm curves of her supple body, his fingers only acutely aware of the places where she felt the most exquisite pleasure. Her arms seem to hang outstretched by her sides for the briefest of moments, as though unsure as to where she was supposed to put them. Then, they moved again, forcing the belt around his waist out from the loops of his pantaloons.

"Now," she growled, jerking the belt towards her and the treasure hunter with it. A grin spread across her face as she felt the muscles of his pelvis stiffen against her thigh. "No more waiting."

"What will it mean for us if we do?" he asked, catching even himself off guard with such an unusual question.

It was not a question that invited any honest answer. Celes knew. He was just getting nervous again. So she swallowed what was left of her own fear, letting the last of her own garments slide soundlessly down her legs.

"Make love to me . . . thief."

And with that one retort, that one 'word', their passion reignited with a vengeance. Locke's lips met hers as they descended upon the bed. Things stopped happening of their own accord, driven now only by desire and the pure, motorized instinct that came with it. Locke took her hands into his own, their lips never parting, never slowing. Body and soul became joined, thought and energy converged. Sweat beaded across the vision of both in a frantic cascade as their tender moment's tempo culminated.

And then, Celes screamed - in terror.

"What? What is it?" Chest heaving and muscles quivering, Locke stared down at his better half in stark confusion. "Come on, it couldn't have been that bad."

"Locke . . ."

She gestured with her chin towards the door, throwing a sheet across her bare chest in the process. In the heat of their moment, neither had apparently heard their door getting broken into until the snarl of some pasty-faced woman accompanied the sound. Turning askance, Locke recognized her as the same woman who had complained earlier in the alley about getting attacked in the wild.

"Don't you got an ear to look for?" he growled in annoyance.

The woman said nothing, only lunged for the bedded couple where they lay.


	2. Chapter 2

"So what now?"

Edgar tilted his head in his brother's direction. "What do you mean?"

"Well, how about an update or something?"

"There's less than ten of us and about five million of them. Would you like an abacus?"

Terra wanted to go back inside. If there was anything she hated more than listening to her two favorite brothers bicker, it was having to listen to the endless groaning of the dead down below. And while it was true that the east parapet of Figaro Castle was comfortably beyond any of their reach, it didn't make the view any more easier to behold. When she thought she was able to make out a single familiar face among them - some savage-faced teenage girl with paint on her clothes and blood on her face - she put the looking glass away for good.

"What's doing this?" she heard herself ask, trying to keep her emotions in check. "A necromancer's spell, some botched alchemy experiment? Why are they even coming here?"

"Memory, probably." Edgar took the looking glass from her and glimpsed the undead hordes for himself. "Instinct. This used to be a place of gathering, somewhere that was important to them."

"Get down of your high horse there, brother." Sabin took his turn with the lens, straining to make out an indistinct shape soaring along the distant horizon at high speed. "I'd say it has as much to do with the gambler's airship than anything. All that streaking across the sky is just as easy a way of telling them where we are as any other."

The others didn't reply. It was just good to know that their gambler friend still had his flesh intact.

_Meanwhile... _

This was going to be one hell of a party.

Dante could already feel adrenaline make the muscles of his arms and back quiver with anticipation. His fingers might already be clicking back the hammers of his patented revolvers if his gaoler hadn't already confiscated them from him. He never cared much for the way these humans thought things out. He had slain one of their own, it was true, but it was also unavoidable. Did none of these peons realize yet that the walking dead were absolutely beyond reason or mercy? Were they really so blind as to everything that was happening out there?

Bloody, apathetic mortals. He had no sympathy for them at all.

He could have quite easily broken free of the cell which now held him captive. There was no secret to it, not for a half-demon like himself. Still, if he got out now, not only would he have a tide of rotting corpses to deal with but there'd also be that king and his ragtag group of friends. Not that they'd pose any real problem, but he still might need them to keep the heat off of his own hide.

Just let them all come to him, he thought vindictively, the living for his assistance, the dead for their release. It was all just Vergil's way of testing him, keeping him cooped up while someone else had all the real fun. It seemed as though the more times he died, the more strange and sinister these crucibles of worlds were becoming.

_Have you begun to tire already, brother? Have you truly become so rusty that you can't even pull the wings from dead flies anymore?_

Dante kicked himself up off the ground, his coat spinning around him in a crimson vortex. One gloved hand rattled at the bars irately while the other beat back the long, platinum hair from his agitated face.

"Tired, ha! I haven't even broken a sweat yet, brother. Come on, then! Let's get this party started!"

The voice in Dante's head kept its lunatic calm.

_Yes, brother. Let us do just that._


	3. Chapter 3

Dusk came and went. The warped and torpid faces of the recently dead dimmed beneath the veil of night, until a black, shambling, moaning mass was all that could be discerned of them. In a castle that was feeling more like a tomb than a safe harbor with each passing hour, nerves frayed easily. Edgar kept pacing too and fro, tugging at the gold brocade of his collar and struggling not to tear out his hair from claustrophobia. Terra sat just a little ways away from him, arms crossed beneath her breasts and hands clutching her waist as though feeling some chill that went unnoticed by anyone else.

"Could you sit down?" she barked at the monarch. "You're making me edgy. What's the big deal, anyway? We've gotten ourselves out of scenarios worse than this."

"We've gotten ourselves out of worse scenarios than this because we still had esper shards around our necks."

Terra wouldn't let his words sway her. "What about that carrier pigeon we sent to South Figaro? Have we heard any word back from them yet?"

No sooner had the question left her lips did Edgar pull the velvet sheet from a birdcage he had concealed beneath the table. Terra's chair almost toppled backwards as an undead beak smacked and clawed at the bars of its prison, white eyes twisted with rage towards her.

Terra swayed. "Well then, I guess we're on our own."

"Don't lose hope yet, kiddo."

Heads turned as the gambler descended from the stairwell leading up to the parapet. With one hand weaving to some melody only he could hear, his grin and swagger brought a smile to Terra's face for the first time in days.

"Setzer!"

He winked and gunned as Sabin labored close behind him with a crate over his head. "People of Figaro, I bring tidings of food and beer! Fill yer stomachs up while you still got one!"

"Never mind that," Edgar replied, allowing for the esper girl to get in a quick hug before bringing him up to speed. "Our situation is perilous. There's no telling how long the barricades downstairs are going to hold, and your airship could be our only chance!"

"Might be a bit of a problem without gas."

Edgar's face wilted, uncomprehending. "What?"

"Some . . . help here, please?" Sabin's voice strained beneath the weight of the container.

"Yeah. The Falcon's damn near empty. I was barely able to keep her float when I was hauling ass out of Albrook. I _knew_ I should have filled her up this morning."

Edgar sighed and scratched at the bridge of his nose, uttering something beneath his breath that was entirely unbecoming of his title.

"Some . . . help!"

"All's not lost, though. I was able to pluck Locke and Celes out of Albrook before anyone was able to take a bite out of them."

Terra brightened. "Locke and Celes! They're alive!"

"Jiah!" And the crate crashed down on top of the Blitz Master's head.

"You bet," said Setzer, pulling a canister of ale from out of the ruined crate. "They're up in the cabin now. Said they needed a minute or two alone, though. Something about 'unfinished business', whatever that means."

The king of Figaro shook his head. "It's still just us against them, who outnumber us something like five hundred thousand to one. What do you plan to do about that?"

"What odds about them?" He took a hearty swig from his ale. "All _you_ have to do is flick a switch and we're underground."

Edgar had wondered when someone was going to bring that up. "Technically, yes. How many pieces we'd be in, I wouldn't be able to tell you. Plates shift around a lot in three years. The old stratum's not even below us anymore."

For a whole minute, no one said anything. Setzer tilted his neck from side to side until it gave a satisfying crack in either direction.

"Well then," he finally said, "Good thing I brought plenty of ale."

Roundabout the same time that was going on, Locke was cozying up alongside his soulmate in the privacy of a deck-three stateroom. Still with his bandana on (and little else), his wet kisses tantalized Celes' neck while a free hand trailed from the rosy tips of her chest, down the swell of her abdomen, and to rest among the short, course hair of her pelvis. She smiled and turned over on the cushion, kissing his clothed forehead.

"About time we dropped the curtain on that act of ours," she said, her own hands straying for the treasure hunter's manhood.

"And what's to come from our next scene together?" he asked, tucking a golden ringlet back behind her ear. "How is it that the two of us are going to fair in this new world of ours?"

All bliss faded from her expression as she rose to dress. Whatever it was that had happened to the people of Albrook, it couldn't have been everywhere else as well. She had explored enough of the world over the past year to know that much . . . or had she?

"We'll survive and rebuild, just like we did the first time." Her breasts gave a sweet bounce as she jostled her way into the clothes which Setzer had given them. "I think we more or less have it down to a science by this time."

"I didn't know you wore lipstick."

"It's not mine." She craned her head to look at herself in the mirror, very meticulously applying a splash of red to her lips. "I found it on the night stand."

"I think that belongs to Daryl," he replied.

She gave him an almost surly look. "Oh please, Locke. I doubt she's going to mind much if I play around with her things."


	4. Chapter 4

It wasn't long after the remnants of their circle became joined that things started to intensify. Boarding up the doors and windows at ground level was becoming tricky business, as materials for the task were only finite while the undead at their doorsteps were seemingly endless. Setzer, Terra, Locke, and Celes ran from one wing of the castle to the other, fighting tirelessly to nail down, jam in, strap tight, and shove firm whatever piece of flotsam or furniture the Figaro brothers had on hand for the occasion. But no matter how secure things appeared, the doors to the castle never ceased to jostle or be pulled apart by the masses. At one point, Sabin made the petition to start tearing apart the gambler's airship for extra resources.

"If you so much as disturb one splinter of that ship," he warned, "I'll feed you to those things myself."

An hour passed, then two. Sweat beaded from their brows as cabinets and bed frames, bookshelves and tables, every imaginable and moveable odd and end had its place at each of the main foyers. When the last article had been moved and the last window was timbered up, all six of them slumped back-on against one of the barricades. Though squat together shoulder-to-shoulder and drained of most of their strength, they held their breath. The air got thinner and candlelight grew dimmer each time they inhaled. Best to conserve what air was left.

"Well," the king uttered, "So far, we've managed to get ourselves marooned in a castle . . . in the middle of a desert . . . surrounded on all sides by millions of undead cannibals . . . and we have virtually no weapons to fight them all with."

Terra sighed and sopped up the sweat running down around her neck. "By that, can we assume that there's some good news to look forward to?"

Edgar weeded through the desk which had been recently relocated from his study, only now able to check the mail which had been delivered earlier that morning. "Well, apparently , I just saved fifteen percent on my car insurance by switching to Geico. That's good news, right?"

Eyes blinked and heads shifted as the king resealed the envelope. When at last he picked up on the piercing stares given to him from his friends, he handed out the envelop to them.

"Hey, it's true. See for yourself."

Sabin knocked the paper out of his hands. "You're a real card, brother."

"And he needs to be dealt with," Setzer added.

And then, disaster. All six of them gave a start as one of the windows down at the far end of the chamber buckled and caved in. The clamor of undead grunts and snarls slammed at the walls of the castle, and each of them were back on their feet in an instant. They all knew that if even one door or window was breached . . .

"Keep 'em busy! Don't let 'em get in!" Edgar ran for the stairwell, gesturing to Sabin as he went. "Bro, grab one of those frames and make for the window. I'll be back in a second."

"Ed–!"

"Two seconds!"

Sabin sighed, his muscles still knotted and head still smarting from the crate he had lifted earlier. Nonetheless, he did as his brother asked.

The others already looked to have been overwhelmed right from the start, with hundreds of white-eyed, blood-soaked faces reaching in with cold, dead hands for something fleshy to gnaw upon. Terra and Setzer were the first to react, grabbing several chairs from out of the blockade and shoving them out through. But the strain of resistance was overpowering, doing little against a flank of zombies that was over a million strong!

"I . . . can't hold 'em!"

Terra shoved with all her might, but to no avail. "Locke!"

"I know! Cel!" He gestured with his chin. "The swords on the wall! Grab 'em, quick!"

A hilt was in his hand before he knew it, and neither wasted any time. Thief and general shoved themselves in between the gambler and esper girl, thrusting out and arching wide with twin sets of ornamental blades. Only a handful of attacks found any purchase, one or two eye sockets getting punctured and the occasional jaw getting impaled. For the most part, however, all they were able to do was scrape or cut away portions of their faces, tearing the unfocused creatures rictus grins of red. Terra squinched beneath the fearsome sight. It was doing more harm than good.

"Out of the way! Get out, watch out!"

Swiftly and mercifully, the horrid display vanished as Sabin buried the grisly scene beneath the spare bed frame. Edgar was back, leaping down over the stairwell with a faded duffle slung over one shoulder. Out from the burlap sack he pulled a fearsome looking pneumatic drill, with a bit so large that Terra fell back on her haunches while trying to secure the frame to the wall.

"Terra!" The gambler grimaced as the sudden loss of manpower had him shoving outwards twice as hard. "Terra, NO!"

A rotted limb seized her by the foot, followed in quick succession by a second and then a third. She screamed as over a dozen hungry hands took hold and towed her off towards the carnage. Celes took a chance, forsaking her own safety and everyone else's by trying to snatch her friend out from the snapping jaws of death. "Grab my hand!" she yelled, struggling with Terra's petite wrists before finally securing a grip. Edgar's macabre tool whirred into life as Celes yanked Terra back inside - pulling three of the creatures inside in the process!

"Move it!" the king growled, swooping in for the kill.

With that, he plunged the gyrating bit down into the first cadaver's throat. Its snarl rattled in its neck as black ichor spattered the king's vest. And yet, the creature seemed not to care - its hands still pawing at Edgar's face for some morsel of flesh. The other two had already recovered their vertical base and continued on after the two women. Celes heel-kicked one while Terra shoved the other head first into a stone petition. Ever shuffling and groaning, they pressed on - unfazed.

"Step the fuck back!" Celes roared, putting up her fists as though ready to fight it hand-to-hand.

But the opportunity never came. The next thing anyone knew, the air was filled with the stench of corpse blood and gunpowder. When the smoke cleared, all three of the creatures lay dead a second time at their feet with fresh bullet holes etched into each skull. Sabin, Setzer, and Locke peered across the hallways, still back-on against the constantly quaking bed frame. Covered in gore, Terra, Celes, and Edgar did the same.

"Dante," Edgar snapped, eyes tinted red as he regarded the silver-haired, half-clothed half-demon with contempt. "When did you get out of your cell, and how did you find those weapons of yours?"

"You're welcome," was Dante's only reply to the hostile monarch, spinning a set of dual pistols around on his fingers before tucking them snuggly into their holsters. "Now then, what say we crank this sucker up a notch!"


	5. Chapter 5

Mere minutes after Dante made his way onto the scene, things at once began to stabilize as well as turn sour against their new and unusual ally. He afforded none of their mistrust with much comment. Only through necessity could he acknowledge any of them as allies himself. With shifty eyes, the Figaro brothers regarded the demon man from a distance.

"Is it really such a good idea to trust that guy?" Sabin asked surreptitiously to his brother. "I mean, that guy did kill the chancellor after all."

"Yes," said Edgar, retuning his drill. "Well, he wasn't the chancellor then. I've been putting two and two together, and it has to be the bites. The chancellor was fine before one of those things tried to make a meal out of him. That's gotta be how it spreads so fast."

"A lot of good that does us now." Usually a bare-knuckled brawler, Sabin left nothing to chance and decided to slip on a set of iron gauntlets for good measure. "What about him, though? What's his story?"

"I hunt these things for a living, Mr. Figaro." Sabin gave a start as Dante spoke without turning to face him. "I know what it is that drives them and, more importantly, how to stop them."

The martial artist rolled his eyes , turning back around to Edgar. "But can we trust him?"

"So long as he doesn't start dancing around and singing "Thriller", I think we'll be okay."

The whole time which Dante spent checking and reloading Ebony and Ivory, Terra was looking the half-demon up and down from a distance. Something about him had begun to stir some very strange feelings in her, bringing life to urges she had never experienced before. Dante noticed her noticing him, though decided not to say anything until she did.

"So," she said, wrapping a lock of her emerald-blond hair around a finger. "Dante, was it? How come we've never seen you around these parts before?"

"It's complicated," he replied, laying Rebellion to one side as he tested the triggers of his pistols. "Sibling rivalry, and all that."

"Oh," she said, smiling coyly. "Well, what are you doing later on tonight?"

Dante looked up at her, keeping his gaze level as she awaited his answer. "It'll be one of two things, I suspect. I'll either be soaking up some rays at Costa del Sol or get turned into zombie fodder in the next hour or so."

She nodded, not entirely sure she had heard tell of any place called Costa del Sol but deciding that it sounded infinitely better than the alternative.

"I'm a halfing too, you know."

"How's that ?"

"I heard Edgar talking about you earlier. He said something about you being a half-demon. Is that true?" Before Dante could respond, Terra continued. "Because I'm a half-esper, you know. Such a small world, isn't it?"

"Minuscule," said Dante, gathering his coat close about him as the groans of the dead became more prolific. "Excuse me . . ."

A dark apprehension passed across the demon man's face as he stared out through the inch-thick holes lining the windows. He saw what no one else could see, that the bleach-white eyes of the fallen seeking entry suddenly assumed a hellish red glow about them. The visage was so foreboding that it made even his demon blood run cold.

"Hell Prides," he though aloud, and others nearby who had been brandishing their implements of destruction with confidence now faltered under the hunter's shellshocked gaze.

_Damn it, brother, that's not fair. They're only mortal._

Though Dante could neither see nor hear Vergil, he had a pretty good idea that he was smiling triumphantly right now.

"Let's get ready to rock!"

Celes straightened when she heard that, securing a full chamber into the king's autocrossbow and eager for the opportunity to use it. Terra, Locke, and Setzer, practical weapons being as scarce as they were, had little to work with aside from the ornamental halberds and short blades which lined the walls. When figuring they were half-ready, the group gathered close to one another for comfort - eyes darting from one failing barricade to the next.

"All you have to do is aim for the head," he told them, both his barrels focused on the boarded up windows at corridor's end. "Your weapon will do the rest."

Locke started to speak when the din of chaos reigned in all around them. Spent shells skittered off the treasure hunter's face, one savage volley of firepower after another ripping and cutting away at whatever dead head was unfortunate enough to have its skull pressed in through the wooden planks. But then the creak and roar of a barrier giving way jarred every last nerve that was still alive to feel it. No one appeared ready for the onslaught as they found half of the worm-eaten husks brandishing weapons of their own!

Celes hesitated. "I thought none of those things could use weap--"

"Don't talk!" Dante reminded her. "Just fire! Hey!"

The demon hunter felt a set of nearby hands paw around at his coat, before realizing that it was Locke - seizing the sawed-off shotgun that was strapped to his back.

"Thief!"

Locke warded the demon off with an icy stare. "Don't go there," he warned.

Dante started to protest, then opted to keep scything through the dead with his dual pistols. There was no way for him to wield all three weapons at once anyway, and they would all need every advantage they could get.

Edgar and Sabin ran pell-mell down the hallway to the next window that was ready to give way. Black gore flecked at the king's face as his drill spun to life yet again, boring through the cranium of one frantic zombie after the next. Sabin ducked and dodged away from the scene, finding little in the way of leverage against an army that was suddenly wielding weapons of their own making. As one side of the wooden partition yawned open, the monarch's twin brother made his move at last, crippling and crushing skull after skull with his gauntleted fists.

But the tide soon shifted, with sheer numbers alone enough to swallow them whole. Celes called out to them, trying to distract long enough to squeeze off one well-timed volley of arrows at the restless legion. Scythes and bludgeons started to chip and tear away at the walls of their refuge, but the general tuned it all out. Ten more stiffened and died beneath a hail of crossbow bolts, and she tossed her hair back to one side with a self-satisfied flare.

Dante meanwhile cartwheeled in his place as one of the Hell Prides swung to behead the half demon from behind. He landed and screeched with exhilaration, Rebellion spearing down out of nowhere and skewering the wraith through the top of its head. Using his own momentum, Dante followed through with flinging the twice-dead projectile north and halting the enemy for several precious seconds - enough for Edgar and Sabin to find some routine for the carnage against them.

Two shots exploded through empty space, flinging Locke backwards from the recoil as the faces of several ex-Imperials vanished in a cloud of brain and bone fragments. He grinned, already enjoying his new toy as he took aim yet again. The weapon gave a useless clicking sound between his hands.

"Locke!" Dante called out, pantomiming with his sword. The treasure hunter mimicked the gesture, ejecting the spent shells from out of the shotgun's chamber. "And load! Yeah!"

"Don't look now," Celes uttered to Terra as a sinewy form in glittering white materialized from out of the rotting masses. "But here comes the bride!"

A passive observer up until now, Terra grit her teeth and shoved the Magitek Knight to one side. Forsaking style for substance, she at last rid herself of a jeweled pike in favor of one of the slain corpse's scimitars. Hurling the weapon end over end, it found home with a dull thud. When next anyone looked, the headless body kept its footing for a split second before vanishing beneath the tide from whence it came.

"And there 'goes' the bride," said Celes offhandedly. "Nicely done. I never thought you had it--"

"_Look out!_"

Celes yelped as a gangrenous blond zombie snuck up behind her, ripping a wide, gory chunk out of her neck. The sound, so achingly familiar to the treasure hunter's ears, had him running to her side in no time. The gambler, having been disposed with keeping the south wing guarded up until that point, leaped to her aid first. A single, razor-edged playing card slipped down from his sleeve, making the gambler grin before embedding the projectile into the creature's forehead.

"Cel!" Locke cried, scooping her whimpering form up into his arms. "Cel, speak to me!"

The gambler's own resolve withered as he came to recognize the clothing on the shade he had just lain waste. Tears strayed along the corners of his eyes. It couldn't have been.

"Daryl?"

Celes turned over in Locke's arms, coughing and spasming as she felt the whole right side of her body go numb. "Locke . . ."

"I'm here." he assured her. "And I won't let you go again, I promise."

"You . . . have to," she rasped, her life blood blanketing them both. "I'm going to become one of them, aren't I?"

"No Cel. Don't . . . just keep fighting the good fight."

No wonder Daryl was looking for a piece of her. He thought he recognized that shade of lipstick.

Terra straightened, picking up the discarded crossbow where it fell. Dante was paying little attention to the emotion of the moment. Almost nothing existed for him now except pistols which kept getting hotter and a sword which kept getting heavier. Slowly but carefully, the esper girl brought the weapon up and trained it upon the dying woman's head. Locke gave a start.

"What are you doing?"

The weapon gave a tremble between her tiny hands, but she held it firm. "You know what I'm doing."

"Terra, don't. She saved your life . . ."

Dante's arms windmilled, slashing apart and two-timing yet another swarm of undead adversaries. The bodies were beginning to mount.

"A little help here!" he roared, though no one appeared to hear him.

"She's not one of them!"

"But she will be."

Setzer gingerly laid the corpse of his best friend to one side, standing to face the esper woman himself. "Terra," he whispered, as softly as he could manage, "Put the crossbow down, okay? We don't need this right now."

"Fuckin' A!" Dante cried out in the background with several blades hanging out of his chest. "I'm getting pureed over here!"

"She's going to die!" Terra wailed. "And then she's going to come back like all the others! We've seen it happen, Edgar's seen it happen!"

"How do you know the same thing will happen to her?" Locke barked back at her. "How do you know that all those magical infusions didn't give her a natural resistance to this bug? Terra, put the bow down."

Edgar let his drill drop uselessly to the floor, much to Dante's chagrin! "Terra, she's still our friend until that happens. We have to give her a chance!"

"Locke . . ." Her head rolled over in his lap, nuzzling weakly into his tunic. "Are you there?"

Terra's hands began to falter, her tears falling unchecked. "I'm only trying to protect you . . . the same way you protected me."

Locke blinked, dumbfounded.

"I'm sorry."

His face started to soften. "Maybe I'm not the one you should be apologizing to."

The esper girl bit her lip. "Celes . . ."

The final barricade gave way at last, and the ever familiar hands of the already dead reached out and took in handfuls of her clothes and hair - not about to let her get away a second time. Locke's face contorted in horror as the others jumped in to retrieve her. Terra stretched out in an attempt to knock the hands away but there was simply too many of them. Sabin and Setzer snatched up her bare legs, heaving in desperately.

"Terra!"

"No! NO!"

As one, the dead came down in a hail upon her, ripping apart both cape and smock, their cold, patchwork limbs clawing and disappearing into her abdomen.

"TER-RA!"

Terra shrieked and then fell silent, her eyes and head lolling heedlessly as fists came away clutching handful after handful of her intestines.

Edgar screeched. "No–!"

Heads shook in repulsed disbelief as the sounds of organs unweaving and cartilage breaking filled all of their world with pink and red. Locke staggered back, still with Celes in her arms as what remained of Terra was ripped and gnawed into oblivion.

The king backpedaled as the very foundation of his castle seemed to give way beneath a sea of undeath. Dante, by this time, was brought down to a shaking, quivering mass of muscle, resisting almost drunkenly against the bodies which covered and chewed at his appendages from head to toe. Almost indistinguishable beneath their assault, the leather-clad demon could do little other than give a weak wave of his long sword as the ghouls delighted in their grim feast.

"They don't pay me enough for this shit," he uttered, finally collapsing beneath the weight of the dead.

Fighting at close quarters made things no more easier for either Sabin or Setzer, who were at the outermost limit of the fray before having to watch their friend get disemboweled. From Edgar's vantage point near the stairwell, he could have only assumed that the gambler and Blitz Master were either eaten alive or suffocated beneath the sheer mass of bodies. Only when the ruler of Figaro made out the scaly green faces of undead pugs did he decide without thinking. He couldn't let the same thing happen to the others.

He wouldn't let it happen.

"Just go," Edgar told them, pushing them up the well. "Take this key. It leads to the north wing of the castle. It's no bomb shelter, but seal it up and you might have a chance."

"Yeah, but . . ." Locke hoisted Celes aloft, eyeing his long-time friend with both respect and guilt. Were any words left unsaid between them? "But what about . . ."

"I'm staying." He pulled the final surprise from out his duffle - his patented chain saw. "I'll hold them back for as long as I can. You two make a go of it."

"But--"

"Go!" Edgar virtually shoved them both up into the landing, slapping on his safety mask in the process. "Things are about to get ugly around here."

Locke shook his head, disappearing with his beloved in tow. Only when he was sure they were out of sight did the monarch's dreaded weapon come to life with a savage tug on its rip cord. With both heart and home suffusing his thoughts, Edgar went on the warpath - one last time.


	6. Chapter 6

"Just hang on, okay?"

Locke couldn't have been sure if she could even hear him anymore, but he pressed on anyway. Her wounds had already begun to stop bleeding, with her face starting to take on a pallid shade of gray. The infection was spreading quickly, and Locke fought to stay ahead of it, trudging tirelessly across stairs, vestibules, and even the ruination that had once been the main audience chamber of Figaro. The north wing was much the same as it had been when last he had seen it: ungarnished stone walls, no tapestries on the window, a simple wooden futon shoved back into the far corner of the room. Locke was taken aback from the irony of it all. It was like being back at their inn in Albrook.

"Don't forget about where you belong, okay?" He laid her down upon the cushion, cradling her head beneath his jacket. He paused for some response. He received none. "Celes?"

He felt for a pulse but there wasn't one. He held a hand above her face, but detected no breath, no movement, no signs of life whatsoever. Had it happened while she was still in his arms? His faced twisted up in grief. She had gone through so much trouble to find him again and he didn't even have the chance to say goodbye.

"That's fine," he said, eyes red with tears as he pulled the tunic from his chest. "I'll be here when you get back, no matter what that might mean to me."

The tunes of their favorite Aria started to drift back to him, providing a grim counterpoint to the slamming of dead limbs up against their door. But he stayed at her bedside. Edgar and the others had sacrificed themselves for this? What was left for him to hang onto now, what was left for any who still bore witness to such grim days as these? Would another like Terra emerge from the darkness, some other ray of hope to help nurture and resurrect the world of old?

The springs beneath the futon started to creak, and Locke willed himself to turn back in her direction. Her suddenly alabaster eyes stared back at him, eyes begetting neither love, tenderness, nor even recognition. Locke was just another meal to her now, which was precisely why he sat bare-chested before her. He would not resist, for where would resistance take him but away from all he held dear?

"So what are you doing tonight?" he asked, straining not to tremble.

Celes lunged for him, plucked from the air by the treasure hunter into an earnest embrace - his last embrace. He held her fast, more out of emotion than reflex as he felt teeth rip apart and devour the muscles in his shoulder blade. Life fluid spilled and sopped audibly onto the flagstone floor, until weakness overcame him at last.

"I love you, Cel . . ." he rasped into her dead ear.

The endless munching and slurping upon his flesh was his only response, following him as all the world passed into nothing...

Less than a minute later, the body of Locke Cole twitched and staggered back to life. Eyes rolled murderously as it combed the room for something to gorge itself on, but when they fell upon the blond-haired form hovering over him he stopped. Neither one recognized the other, yet the glint in each of their eyes hinted at something imperceptible - some 'other' primal urge in desperate need of being satisfied. The body of Celes Chere stooped down then, kissing and chewing at the flesh of his lips. When she came up, a small sliver of his face hung clenched between her teeth.

The dead treasure hunter almost smiled, returning the gesture in kind.

The End


End file.
